9.7.1. Users Cannot Access Their Desktops

On a terminal trigger the following command:

/opt/SUNWvda/lib/vda-client -u <user>

If things work as expected, then the vda-client will trigger
the startup of the corresponding desktop and should return
an IP (for example. 10.16.46.208) or DNS name (for example,
xpdesktop01) for accessing the user's desktop. If the RDP
port differs from the default, then it will be appended to
the IP/DNS name (for example. 10.16.46.208:49259 or
xpdesktop01:49259)

With that information it should now be possible to establish
an RDP connection to the desktop.

If no IP or DNS name is returned by vda-client,
Oracle VDI might not be able to resolve the user
ID in the user directory.

If <dn> is null, that means that no user matching the
user id <test user> was found in
the user directory. It might be necessary to customize the
list of attributes ldap.userid.attributes
to match the directory schema as explained in
Section C.1, “How to Edit LDAP Filters and Attributes”.

If <dn> is not null, that means that the user matching
the user id <test user> was
correctly found in the user directory.

9.7.2. A User Can Log in But Their Desktop is Not Responding

A user might find that they can log in to Oracle VDI,
but they cannot use a desktop because the virtual machine is not
responding.

If this happens, the solution is to restart the desktop. This
can be performed by an administrator (for example with the
vda desktop-restart command) or by the user.

For a user to restart their desktop, they must first disconnect
from the desktop by moving the mouse up to the top of the screen
and clicking the "X" on the remote desktop pulldown menu. When
the Desktop Selector screen is displayed, the user selects the
non-responsive desktop and clicks the Reset button to restart
the desktop. Restarting a desktop is the same a rebooting a
traditional PC, and users also see a warning that they might
lose their unsaved data. Once the desktop is rebooted, it can be
connected to from the Desktop Selector screen. Desktops provided
by the following provider types cannot be restarted in this way:

Generic desktop provider

Microsoft Remote Desktop provider

Sun Ray Kiosk Session provider

9.7.3. Error - "Currently There Is No Desktop Available Or Assigned to You"

Oracle VDI typically returns the above message for the
following reasons:

There are no desktops directly assigned to the user.

There is a pool assigned to the user, but no desktops in the
pool are available or free to use.

A desktop has been selected, but it is in an unusable state,
typically the startup of the desktop has failed for whatever
reasons.

The CLI will ask for the user's password. So you have to
enter the same credential information as on the Kiosk
session login screen (if authentication is disabled on your
system, the vda-client CLI will still
prompt for a password, but you can leave this blank then -
your input is not validated in this case).

If everything works, then you should get a CSV list of
desktop/pool assignments. The format is something like

<pool name>,<desktop name>,<desktop
ID>,<origin>

If you get an error here, or the system reports no
assignments, check the Cacao logs. Look for entries of the
ClientRequestWorker that handles vda-client requests:

The <poolname> and <desktopId> parameters are
only necessary if multiple desktops are assigned and you
want to startup a specific desktop. If there is only one
desktop or pool assigned (or you just want to startup the
default desktop), then you do not need to provide these
parameters. If everything works, then the CLI will return
the name (or IP) of the user's desktop/virtual machine
optionally followed by a colon and the number of the RDP
port.

If that does not work (the CLI reports an error), then you
should again take a look into the logs:

Again the log entries between the request received and sent
response should give you some insights about any issues here.

One typical issue is that no suitable host to startup the
desktop has been found. In that case you should first check the
memory available for running the desktop/virtual machine.

9.7.4. Is It Possible to Customize the Desktop Login Screen?

Adapting the Oracle VDI login screen, which is
displayed on Sun Ray Clients, is supported, with some limitations.

It is possible to add a company logo (upper left corner) and to
replace the background of the desktop login/selection dialog
(middle of the screen) with a custom image. However, there is no
way to change the text position and colors of buttons and input
elements. Due to this limitation we also require a fixed size
background image - otherwise the dialog input elements would
appear misplaced on the screen.

Place your custom image(s) in the Kiosk session directory under
/etc/opt/SUNWkio/sessions/vda - ensure that
file permissions (readable for everyone) are correct. The file
names must be dialog_background.png and
company_logo.png respectively. For the start
you might want to download the sample background image below and
make the desired modifications there.

Either quit the existing Sun Ray Kiosk session (click on quit
button) or perform a cold restart of Sun Ray services to enforce
the creation of new Kiosk sessions. The images should now appear
in the Oracle VDI login/desktop selection screen.

Figure 9.2. Position of a Company Logo on a Customized Desktop Login Screen

The other more complex alternative is to replace the default
Oracle VDI kiosk session with an adapted version. The
Oracle VDI web service API offers all the
functionality needed to communicate with the
Oracle VDI service for retrieving a list of assigned
desktops and starting desktops. You can create your own GUI
(login screen and Desktop Selector) using this web service API,
but this requires more programming effort.

9.7.5. The Sun Ray Client Is Cycling and Cannot Connect to a Virtual Machine

Verify that the Oracle VDI host can communicate
with either your vCenter or your Oracle VM VirtualBox host.

The firewall on the vCenter server might be blocking the
communication.

The user name or password might be incorrect.

Verify that the VMware tools are installed on the Windows
guest OS.

If connecting to Windows 7 desktops using Microsoft RDP,
ensure that users log in within 30 seconds.

By default Windows 7 disconnects an RDP connection if no-one
logs in within 30 seconds.

9.7.6. Users Cannot Log in to Ubuntu 8.04 Desktops Because the Network Is Not
Enabled

Ubuntu has the old "Debian style" network behavior so that every
MAC address change (every clone) bumps the network interface
name by one. The result is that getting a working network
configuration requires a few admin mouse clicks. The only
solution to this is at template preparation time by excluding
the Oracle VM VirtualBox MAC address range (08:00:27:*) from the
"persistent net" machinery in
/lib/udev/rules.d/75-persistent-net-generator.rules
and then purging
/etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules.

9.7.8. Hotdesking Redirect Does Not Work With Windows XP Professional and
Microsoft RDP

For Windows XP Professional virtual desktops, the hotdesking
redirect to the original VDI Center does not work if Microsoft
RDP (MS-RDP) is selected as the desktop protocol for the pool.

For Windows desktops, Oracle VDI can distinguish
between a desktop disconnect and a desktop logout. If a user
selects Start > Logout from the Windows start menu, the user is
logged out of the Windows desktop and the Oracle VDI
(kiosk) session. If the user selects Start > Disconnect, then
the user is disconnected from the Windows desktop while
remaining logged into VDI. If disconnected but not logged out,
user returns to the desktop selection screen and can, for
example, select a different desktop without the need to log in
again. This disconnect behavior is controlled by the
client.logout.always setting, which is
enabled by default for security reasons. When it is enabled, the
user is automatically logged out of Oracle VDI upon
disconnecting from a Windows desktop. If the setting is
disabled, however, then a disconnect does not result in a logout
from the Oracle VDI session.

As part of the Oracle VDI logout process, the Sun Ray
Client is redirected to the initially/first contacted
Oracle VDI Center. This behavior is especially useful
when dealing with multiple VDI centers. Unfortunately, the
distinction between logout and disconnect does not work for
Windows XP Professional virtual desktops, if Microsoft RDP
(MS-RDP) is used for displaying the desktop (and the desktop has
joined a domain). In this specific case, because Windows XP
returns the wrong exit code, Oracle VDI interprets a
Start > Logout as a desktop disconnect. Consequently, the user
is not logged out of Oracle VDI, and the Sun Ray
Client is not redirected to the initial Oracle VDI
Center.

The workaround is either to use VirtualBox RDP (VRDP)
instead of MS RDP or to ensure that users are always logged out
of Oracle VDI when they disconnect from their desktop.
As explained above, the client.logout.always
setting is already enabled by default. If you have changed this
behavior, you can reset it with the following command: